The burnt-out towers of Wang Fuk Court stand like blackened fingers pointing towards the heavens, a few of them bandaged in bamboo scaffolding and scraps of green tarpaulin.
Almost two months after Hong Kong’s worst fire in almost 80 years, the flowers and notes with messages of grief have been cleared away but the site is still cordoned off, with a small detachment of police officers sheltering under an awning from the January sun.
The flat complex was in the middle of a lengthy renovation when the fire spread from one building to the next until seven of the eight 31-storey towers were in flames. The authorities believe that substandard netting on the scaffolding and foam boards installed on windows helped the fire to spread so fast.
The blaze raged for 43 hours, killing 168 people – including one of the firefighters who battled it – and displacing nearly 5,000 people from their homes. Most are still living in emergency accommodation, some in hotels or hostels and others in repurposed buildings including former coronavirus quarantine centres.
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Many are now looking for clarity about where they will be rehoused permanently, and more than 1,100 former residents of Wang Fuk Court have signed a petition saying they want to move back to the site of the fire.
“Some may believe that accepting relocation or cash compensation is a more rational choice, but for us, the scorched land of Wang Fuk Court carries the souls of our departed loved ones,” they said. “This is not a negotiation, but a plea to protect our home.”
Deputy financial secretary Michael Wong Wai-lun said the estate was expected to be repurposed for community facilities rather than housing, citing overseas examples where sites of similar tragedies were rarely redeveloped for residential use. He stressed that “no one will earn big money” from the land in future – an attempt to counter speculation that the authorities want to sell the land to developers for profit.
“At this moment, we feel on-site reconstruction is not really very practical,” he told a radio interviewer. “You look at some experiences abroad, they wouldn’t do that.”
He said building on the original site would take 10 years, while developments on other sites could be finished as early as 2029. And a “flat-for-flat” arrangement would allow residents to exchange their damaged homes in the complex for new ones of equivalent value with no cash transaction.
[ After the Hong Kong fire, Beijing confronts a grief it can’t easily policeOpens in new window ]
Hong Kong’s government has established an independent committee to investigate the cause of the fire and the public will be able to attend its first meeting next month. But the authorities have dissolved the Wang Fuk Court homeowners’ board, which had a mixed record before the fire.
In the immediate aftermath of the fire, Hong Kongers queued at the scene to lay flowers and pay their respects to those who died in the biggest unauthorised gatherings in the city since the imposition of the National Security Law in 2020. Members of the public started asking questions on social media about the cause of the fire and whether official negligence had played a role.
A few days later, Hong Kong’s Office for Safeguarding National Security called in foreign news organisations in the city to warn them against “false information and smear campaigns” about the fire. The officials read out a statement, telling the journalists that they could not say they had not been warned, but declined to take any questions.
One reason for the authorities’ sensitivity was that the fire came just before the city was due to go to the polls to elect the minority of seats in the Legislative Council which are subject to a popular vote. Pro-democracy parties were pressured into dissolving in advance of the election and some moderate, pro-Beijing politicians were encouraged to make way for less well-known, approved candidates.
Despite a vigorous campaign to persuade people to vote, only 32 per cent of those eligible turned out. This was a slightly bigger proportion than in 2021 when 30 per cent voted, but the actual number of voters was lower.
The year has begun with more trouble for Hong Kong’s authorities as the conviction of former media owner Jimmy Lai for colluding with foreign forces has brought international attention back on to the impact of the National Security Law. At a mitigation hearing last week, Lai’s lawyers appealed for leniency – but the mandatory sentence is for between 10 years and life in prison.
The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly on Thursday in favour of a resolution condemning Lai’s conviction and demanding his release. It also called on the European Commission to try to get Hong Kong suspended from the World Trade Organisation where it has its own representation, separate from China’s.
